Blabfeed, a digital signage company created by young Ponca entrepreneur and self-proclaimed marketing evangelist Keith Fix, was recently purchased by his tribe’s economic development corporation, OSNI Ponca, LLC.
Since Fix founded blabfeed four years ago, the business has increased its revenue by 270 percent. Today it generates about $1 million annually. Ho-Chunk, Inc., the Winnebago tribe’s economic development arm, provided the seed capital for blabfeed in 2012. “The vision is a billion-dollar entity,” Lance Morgan, president and CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc., told Silicon Prairie News.
OSNI Ponca purchased Perfecta Media (trade name blabfeed), which employs about 30 people, plus contractors and interns. The deal closed February 17; terms were not disclosed.
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“This represents something much bigger than another startup acquisition,” Fix, blabfeed CEO, told the Omaha-World Herald. “I am eager to help expand OSNI Ponca’s efforts by adding jobs, internships, code school training and much more to my fellow tribal members.”
Fix underscored that the deal changes the socioeconomic trajectory of the tribe. “[Blabfeed’s] first government contract two years ago was $30,000 and last year alone we did $500,000 in just government contracts,” Fix told the Lincoln Journal Star.
Fix first pitched his concept for blabfeed at a business plan competition in 2012 while a student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. That’s when Fix was interning at Ho-Chunk, Inc., which provided the seed money for Fix to launch it. Fix is quick to thank tribal and community support for getting blabfeed off the ground. “It took a village. It took a tribe,” Fix told Silicon Prairie News.
Essentially, blabfeed creates digital signage — the creative ads you see while scrolling through websites and social media, or rotating on TV screens and kiosks at the airport.
Fix began with a simple concept in high school, putting “blab boards” — digital picture frames — in local business lobbies, starting with his dentist’s office. He sold ad space to other businesses; their promotions revolved on the screen. He quickly realized that model was “lightyears” behind, and generated a new plan that allowed businesses to buy digital signage for internal marketing purposes. “Especially playing in the technology field, we always want to push out the next best thing,” Fix said during a 2013 presentation.
The digital signage market was valued at $16.88 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $27.34 billion by 2022, at a growth rate of 6.7 percent between 2016 and 2022. “Signage is everywhere. The space is exploding,” Fix said.
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He’s contributing to that sector from his Omaha, Nebraska, headquarters, in the “Silicon Prairie,” creating digital ads across varied verticals: healthcare, banking/financial, retail, hospitality, entertainment, education and government. The company also provides licensing for software, hardware, screens/tablets, installation services, customer management, and tracks website demographics. “We want to be an engine powering home experiences around the world,” Fix said.
OSNI Ponca, LLC, saw buying Perfecta Media as a smart move. “Our tribe is diversifying our approach to economic development,” Ponca Tribe of Nebraska Chairman Larry Wright, Jr., told Silicon Prairie News. “Blabfeed brings high-skill, high-wage careers to our people and cements our sustainability as a thriving economy.”
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